All Souls, Berkeley
11/13/11
Proper 28A
Judges 4:1-7
1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
Matthew 25:14-30
Gracious God, take our minds and think through them;
take our hands and work through them;
take our hearts and set them on fire.
Amen.
What a day to get the charge to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest Holy Scripture, eh?
I’m wondering if anyone else felt a moment of disconnect at the end of the Gospel there?
Mary? How was it for you to proclaim that ‘For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away’?
Did anyone else feel a slight hesitation in responding ‘Praise to you, O Christ’ after the last line about the worthless slave getting thrown into the ‘outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth’—as if it were some horrible trip to the dentist!
One clergy friend posted this comment on Facebook: “If you’re preaching tomorrow, please join me in reminding your congregations that God is *just* like a vicious loan shark whose only interest is in securing more money for himself. But somehow, also, loving.”[1]
I think all of these reactions to today’s Gospel point to one thing – this is no easy story to proclaim or hear.
So what are we to do with it? Let’s begin by taking a closer look at what Matthew was doing with this parable.
While most commonly known as the ‘parable of the talents’, this tale is in actuality not centered on the talents, but on the third slave, the master, and their relationship.[2]
That being said, what was a talent? In the time of Jesus a talent was an enormous sum of money. One talent was roughly equal to 15 years of wages for the average day laborer. So one slave was given the equivalent of 75 years of wages, another 30 years and the last one a mere 15 years. And then the master went away trusting them to steward such amazing gifts.
Like is the case with many of the parables, there is an over the top quality to the circumstances we find in this story.
Not only are we talking huge, unrealistic sums of money, but two thirds of the slaves took that money and were able to beat the odds by doubling it in the market. Only the last slave hid the money by burying it in the ground, but both choices were actions which set the stage for the return of the master, a settling of accounts and the climatic finish of weeping and gnashing of teeth.
But the kicker is that for Matthew this wasn’t about money at all. While Luke has a slightly different version of this story that occurs earlier in the story, Matthew puts this parable as second to last tale Jesus told his disciples before the events leading to his passion and death.
Jesus wasn’t giving his friends last minute financial advice, he was again (like he had been all along) teaching them how to live faithfully in the world once he was gone. He was telling them that life, and living, are full of risks, but that if they trust God and don’t give in to fear, then they will continue to follow the path he set out for them.
It was the slaves that took the exorbitant gifts and took risks with it, that resisted the fear of just trying to hold on to it, and in the end they entered into joy upon the master’s return. Not because they doubled his money, but because they didn’t keep it hidden, because they lived like they really trusted God. The lived the Gospel every day and not just on the Sabbath.
But the third slave buried the money, as like in a grave. He acted out of fear, which he readily admitted to when questioned by his returning master. He was able to return coin for coin exactly what he was given. But instead of living the Gospel he let fear kept him from growing, just as it did the gift he was given stewardship over.
Fear is powerful. It can be strong enough to stop us in our tracks and make all our choices seem futile and the ability to take action seem impossible.
Fear makes us cling rather than letting go. But clinging only binds us to our fear. It does not set us free.[3]
The slave that was driven by fear learned the lesson that the greatest risk of all is to not risk anything, not to care deeply and profoundly enough about anything to invest deeply, to give your heart away and in the process risk everything.[4]
With all this in mind we would do well to remember the words of Anglican poet and priest George Herbert: “Seven whole days, not one in seven, I will praise thee.” Like so many of Jesus’ stories, this parable calls us to a fullness of life built on God’s love every day and in all our actions.
Sooo…this parable is not about money. Except when it is.
Money is an inescapable factor in our lives. Decisions about how we get money and then what to do with it, are things we begin learning as children and can take us a lifetime to master. Money can be used for necessities and for indulgences. It is said it can’t make you happy, and yet our culture tells us that we always need to buy something new and better – always more.
And in the last few years, as the economic crisis has unfolded, more and more of us have faced the reality of unemployment or pay cuts, rising food and housing prices and the weight of debt. It never ends, like a treadmill that keeps us moving but never gets us anywhere. And we’re still told it’s never enough, there’s always something next. Right now that next is Christmas. In fact, it was Christmas in many stores before it was even Halloween. It’s always more, more, more.
But not more like in the parable. In our lives, paradoxically the more has begun to bury us in the ground.
Something has to change. And perhaps it has begun.
Occupy Wall Street. The 99% talking back to the 1%.
For the last month as we’ve watched this movement unfold in the streets, and as we’ve sat in our pews and focused on St. Francis and stewardship, I’ve felt the call to pull this into our corporate life and to pray about the things happening in New York City and in our own backyards – Oakland, San Francisco, Cal.
What’s going on is something that shouldn’t remain outside our walls, and while it is in no way a Christian or even religious movement, faith leaders and faithful people are bringing Christian thought and theology to sidewalks and tents.
There is much commentary, both theological and otherwise to be found out there, including an excellent sermon that I highly recommend for your edification preached recently at CDSP by All Souls member and Professor of Church History, Dr. Dan Joslyn-Siemiatkoski, in which he wove together beautifully foundational Anglican theologian Richard Hooker and the OWS movement.[5] (have Dan stand up; people can email me for link to it)
When I read today’s gospel, and indeed our psalm as well, I knew it was time to examine what the Spirit might be saying to us about the occupy movement.
Now, I have to admit when I first starting reading and hearing about OWS I was, if not skeptical, then perhaps just comfortable in my inability to affect change. You might call entrenched fear.
I didn’t see a clear message emerging. I didn’t see how camping out in the shadow of Wall Street’s golden calf could really do anything. And while there is still no clear message with a list of bullet points for change, and while it remains to be seen what this movement will be able to do to affect change, I have begun to feel changed because of it.
Do you feel it? The smell of possibility in the air? The feeling of a loss of isolation, as if for so long we were each alone in thinking that the system is broke, that our culture and economic system were heading for collapse. The tentative stirring of hope as we watch this something pull together so many people into one place.
And now, as OWS has spread across social media and throughout the world, there is for the first time in my memory, real and widespread conversation going on about power and money, oppression and privilege, about no longer accepting the status quo.
People en masse are not only gathering in cities and towns and campuses to occupy, but they are beginning to take the risk of change together en masse too.
Just look at the number of people who have taken their money out of big banks in the last few months and the popularity of ‘bank transfer day’ a little over week ago as many thousands of people put their money in Credit Unions. Or the rise in popularity of ‘Small Business Saturday’ on November 26th when we are all encouraged to do our holiday shopping at locally owned businesses as a counterpoint to the orgy of consumerism that is Black Friday.
These are just a couple of the things rising to the surface for the 99%. Where it goes next is up to all of us, and I find that risky and exciting.
But the fact remains that 99% is not 100%, and just like the good shepherd left the 99 to search for the 1 lost sheep, I believe we are called as Christians to focus our wrok in all of this towards reconciliation.
What do I mean by that? Well, I think there are many layers. The first could be this: I am going to go out on a limb and say that most of us gathered here are 99%-ers, and yet the fact remains that we are individually and as a parish privileged. I define privilege not only by wealth, but by other factors as well – race, gender, class, education level attained, sexual orientation, physical ability – you name it; all those little categories we can break ourselves down into give us relative levels of power and privilege.
Those in effect are our own personal 1%-edness, and we ignore it to our detriment. How we each choose to use our privilege is just as important as how those who make up the 1% that OWS cites does. Do we bury our power and privilege, like the third slave did the talents, or are we out there risking ourselves to help co-create the reign of God here and now?
A second is layer that as a parish we are in a place of privilege. We are growing while so many churches are shrinking. We have been able to make budget throughout the economic downturn because this community gets that we are called to live and give from a place of abundance, not scarcity. So what are we doing with the gifts we’ve been given to steward? What are we burying and what are we sending out into the world?
And a final layer might just be that as Christians we are called to speak truth to power – to that 1% that holds so much more – that we proclaim that we will not live in fear, that we will not buy what they are selling, and that we invite them to repent and join us – in making us – 100% together.
All of this together brings me back to the Gospel. It isn’t about money, except when it is. But what it is always about, is how we choose to live our lives, how we live into change and indeed make change. It’s about living our faith fully, however risky that may be. Seven days a week, not just one in seven.
When we live this, we bury nothing. This is our call. This is what we why we respond “Praise to you, O Christ.” This is our voice reflected down through the centuries from the Gospel, into poetry, and maybe even into a movement to Occupy Wall Street.
~ AMEN ~
[1] The Rev. Stephen Hassett
[2] Feasting on the Word: Year A, Volume 4, Season after Pentecost 2 (Propers 17 – Reign of Christ), pg. 310.
[3] www.unfoldinglight.net, The Rev. Steve Garnaas-Holmes.
[4] Feasting on the Word: Year A, Volume 4, Season after Pentecost 2 (Propers 17 – Reign of Christ), pg. 310.
1 comments:
Post a Comment